Women’s apparel retailer The Limited opened at Brookfield Square mall Tuesday with only four small racks of merchandise clustered in the middle of the store amid signs saying “80% off” and “Everything Must Go!”

At Mayfair, The Limited store opened Tuesday with even less picked-over apparel left for sale.

The imminent closings are another sign of how dramatically the nation’s retail landscape is changing. Although retailers overall had the biggest growth in holiday sales in five years, experts don’t expect any letup in store closings in 2017.

A record amount of the spending for the season was done online. And when customers showed up in stores, much of the foot traffic was driven by discounting.

“This was a fantastic shopping season, but for many department store and apparel retailers, this was a very challenging holiday,” said Steven Barr, retail consumer leader for consultant PwC. “I anticipate we will see significant numbers of store closures.”

For The Limited, that’s already happening after decades of operating in Milwaukee and across the United States.

The Columbus, Ohio-based company and its owner, private equity firm Sun Capital Partners Inc., haven’t officially said what is happening with the fashion chain.

But an employee at the Brookfield Square site, which is selling fixtures as well as the last remaining clothes, said the store would close. A Mayfair employee said that store would shut down Saturday.

Retail industry analyst Anne Brouwer said it seems The Limited is on the verge of succumbing to the pressure many retailers face today as consumer behavior and buying patterns change.

“It does appear that they may very well be looking at the end here,” said Brouwer, senior partner at McMillanDoolittle in Chicago.

Today’s consumers are spending more on experiences than stuff, the apparel industry is in a weak period for “must-have items,” and many competitors — like H&M and Forever 21 — have popped up, she said.

And, of course, there’s online retailer Amazon.com.

“Amazon is rapidly on their way to becoming the No. 1 apparel retailer,” Brouwer said.

The Columbus Dispatch reported that Sun Capital Partners, of Boca Raton, Fla., said last month in a letter to employees that because of a slump in sales and debt pressures The Limited would be sold or closed.

The Limited, which started business in 1963, had targeted working women with many of its offerings.

In 2011, the chain redesigned its stores to have a warmer environment for shoppers. The Brookfield Square and Mayfair locations were among the first to get the new look.

The Limited has had a location in Brookfield for almost 30 years. The Limited once was part of Limited Brands Inc., now known as L Brands, which is the parent company of Victoria’s Secret and Bath & Body Works. Sun Capital bought The Limited in 2007.

The future looks dicey for many other brick-and-mortar stores as well. Macy’s has already announced it will close about 100 stores in 2017 — it has yet to specify locations — amounting to about 15% of its 675 full-line stores. Other department store chains may follow suit.

Yet the moves come as retailing as a whole is shining.

Americans’ holiday shopping binge came as the Consumer Confidence Index hit a 13-year high in a surge of optimism about the economy, jobs and income, The Conference Board, a nonprofit research organization, reported Tuesday.

Overall, consumers spent $196.1 billion on holiday purchases, up 3.8%, the biggest increase since 2011, research firm Conlumino said Friday. Mastercard’s SpendingPulse put the increase at 4% and said the day before Christmas was the top shopping day of the season.

While stores saw a 2.6% increase, the big winner was online sellers, which saw their sales soar 17.1%, Conlumino said. It was the biggest gain for online in at least a decade.

Amazon and other online-only sellers scored big. Among traditional retailers, the big gains went to discounters — but not to mass merchandisers and department stores.

Now, the challenge for store chains will be to better define their place in the market and create more of an experience for those who venture away from their computers.

Stores that become a destination or entertain the customer — whether it’s giving them a chance to run on a treadmill or try out an in-store basketball court — are more likely to survive, said PwC’s Barr.

“The retail store is not dead,” he said, “but the retail store of the past is dead.”